Stripping Sealer from Concrete

The rug I painted on my garage floor is still going strong! (If you haven’t watched the how-to video yet, what are you waiting on?) But one thing I left out of the video was how I messed up the first time I applied the sealer to the floor.

The mistake I made was a total rookie move. I simply applied it too thick. You would think, oh let me coat it really good so I don’t miss any spots. But what happens is that it doesn’t cure, or dry, very well. And it ends up tacky and streaky.

Exhibit A:

I couldn’t very well leave it like that before moving on and painting my rug. So I did a little research and found a fairly easy way to essentially strip the sealer from the concrete.

Even though the worst of the streaks was on the left side, where I started applying the sealer, I figured I should just do the whole floor and keep it even.

The method I decided to go with involves laying a towel/sheet/drop cloth over the trouble spot and soaking it in a solvent. So instead of using up towels from the house or my lovely paint drop cloths, I picked up some single flat sheets from Walmart.

These are twin-sized and were about $5 each. Together they covered half of the garage. Not bad for such a large ‘drop cloth’!

The solvent I used was Xylene*. I picked up a couple gallons from the paint department.

I laid out the sheets over the floor, trying to smooth out as many folds and gathers in the sheets to keep it as flat to the ground as possible. Then I had to get my husband to help me pour the Xylene over both sheets until they were fully saturated. A pregnant lady doesn’t need to be inhaling those kinds of fumes!

We left it overnight for the sealer to be absorbed by the Xylene into the sheets. Then we picked them up and moved them to the other half of the garage and repeated the process.

You can see the wrinkles from the sheets were left behind on the left side until it had a chance to ‘breathe’ and evaporate after removing the sheets. It looked much better before I started the sealing process over.

So yes. Since I removed the sealer I did go back after a few days and reapply it (lightly this time!) before carrying on with the painting prep. I’m glad I took the time to make it right, though. If it had just been the streaks, I might have been able to overlook it. But since it was also sticky to the touch, I didn’t want that to interfere with the adhesion of my garage floor paint.

Whether you applied your sealer too thick or you want to remove it for other reasons, give this trick a try! I like that you pour it and forget about. No scrubbing involved like some sealer strippers!

Have you applied sealer too thick before? What did you do about it? Did you know you can also apply it too thick on a wood deck too? Thin and light is key! Comment below to share your experiences!

Thanks for Checking In! ~Chelsea

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